Rags to Riches iPhone Success Stories

1. Steve Demeter, the developer of the $5 game Trism spent $5,000 developing the game and in those amazing two months following the launch of the App Store, grossed $250,000. To date the APP has brought in several million dollars. Demeter acknowledges there was some luck involved, but designed Trism with unique gameplay and high replay value and an online leaderboard for a community dimension. Intelligent marketing, naturally, is a critical component of success.

2. While I was doing the final edits for this very page, The New York Times ran a major article about Ethan Nicholas and his wife Nicole who were having trouble making their mortgage payments and medical bills. Nicholas heard about Steve Demeter and decided to write an iPhone app himself. The 30-year-old had zero experience in iPhone apps but years of java programming experience. After six weeks of working “morning, noon and night,” he created an iPhone application called iShoot. The first day, the $4.99 app made $1,000, and he thought he had won the lottery. The second day, $2,000. The third day, he made $5000, and this earning level persisted for several weeks. Then he retooled the app and gave out a “free” version with fewer features but with an upsell to a paid version. So far, he has earned $800,000, called his boss and quit his job. He plans to “milk the gold rush as long as I can.”

3. A Greek entrepreneur and two of his friends invested a week of their time and created an iPhone app called iSteam. It makes the face of the iPhone look like a fogged up bathroom mirror. They made $100,000 in 90 days.

4. Bart Decrem created Tap Tap Revenge, a music rhythm game, and within two weeks of release hit the 1 million download milestone. The game was free to download, and Decrem looked to finance his application through advertising and a premium paid version of the game.

The iPhone and Apple’s Development Kit open the market to those who would like to Get Rich Click; you don’t need substantial capital, simply talent and time. Many liken the iPhone landscape to the early days of the Internet, when excitement was high and the sky seemed the limit.

Remember, if you want to have an iPhone app created, get competitive bids at iPhoneAppQuotes.com.